Commentary

Obama should give us a reason to vote for him

Commentary: ‘I’m not Mitt Romney’ isn’t good enough

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — I’ve been watching the daily election dramas, and I still think Obama is going to win the election. But he’s winning it the wrong way.

This has been a particularly negative presidential campaign.

I’m not talking just about the negative TV ads. It’s the whole strategy of the campaign that’s negative. Instead of giving us reasons to vote for them, the candidates are giving us reasons to vote against the other guy.

Mitt Romney is promising not to be anything like Barack Obama, and the president is promising not to be Mitt Romney.

It means the campaign is curiously content-free. We’ve been bombarded by ads, speeches and debates telling us what the two men don’t like about the opponent, but, with four weeks to go until Election Day, voters know precious little about what each of the candidates stands for and intends to do.

You can find out information about Obama’s and Romney’s plans for the next four years if you really dig deep, but the campaigns aren’t making it easy. Perhaps that’s because neither of them has many ideas that would really resonate with the public.

For Romney, his big ideas seem to be cutting taxes (with most of the benefits going to the already-wealthy) and rolling back the signature achievement of Obama’s first term, the health-care law.

That means if Romney were elected, we’d basically go back to where we were in 2008, only with lower tax rates.

Fear vs. fear

Obama has fallen into the trap that has cost so many Democrats the presidency: trying to scare voters into supporting you by persuading them that your Republican opponent is a big scary right-winger who will start a war, starve their children and throw grandma off a cliff. It didn’t work for Carter in 1980, or Mondale in 1984, or Kerry in 2004.

Grading the performances

(4:32)

Jerry Seib gives his post-analysis of the vice presidential debate.

And, despite the big lead Obama held in the polls as recently as a week ago, it may not work for Obama either.

Romney holds a home-court advantage if the game is played on these terms, because Republicans have often been able to win by portraying their Democratic opponents as big, scary socialists who want to take away our guns, our private enterprise and our God. It worked for Nixon, it worked for Reagan, and it worked for both of the Bushes.

It didn’t work for McCain and Palin, however.

Democrats felt after the 2008 election that perhaps the country really had changed, and that such scare-mongering and red-baiting wouldn’t work anymore. But 2010 and the rise of the tea party should have shaken them out of that delusion.

If the election is just a contest over which party can scare the electorate most, Romney may very well win.

Republicans have often been able to win by portraying their Democratic opponents as socialists who want to take away guns, private enterprise and God. It worked for Nixon, it worked for Reagan, and it worked for both of the Bushes.

To win, Obama needs to run on his ideas. There are plenty of big challenges for Obama to choose among: the rising inequality in America, the erosion of our manufacturing base, global warming and sustainable growth, the stranglehold money has over our political system. He could even campaign on strengthening the finances of the great middle-class entitlement programs.

For his part, Romney needs to explain how his plans to lower taxes and balance the budget would really add up to a country that makes everyone richer.

It matters how you win. If Obama won as the anti-Romney, he’d have no mandate to accomplish anything in particular. Working with what’s likely to be a Republican House wouldn’t be an easier than it is now.

But if he came in with a positive agenda, he’d have the power of the people behind him. He’d have a stronger hand to play.

Reuters

Obama’s second term, if he secures one next month, would be a bigger success if called on Americans to join him in a great task.

Obama won in 2008 because the voters were tired of recession and war, and they thought Obama was the candidate who could bring back the jobs, bring back the troops, and bring back our national dignity. It turned out to be harder than the voters — and the president — thought it would be.

Lots of Democrats and pundits have been urging Obama to go big, to promise to do something in his second term that would really matter in our lives. That would allow him to offer something positive to the voters and play to his strength: his inspiring rhetoric.

If Obama did go big, though, he’d be running against history. Few presidents have been re-elected based on a big new idea. Instead, their ambitions were modest. The two-term presidents who were most successful (such as Washington, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton) expanded and consolidated the achievements of their first terms and became adept at compromising with the opposition in Congress and with adversaries abroad.

Obama may yet win a second term without offering voters anything positive to vote for. But he’d accomplish more in that second term if he had called on the people to join him in a great task, rather than just settling for being the anti-Romney.

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